Task Cluster B: Variation

Task Cluster B focuses on the dynamics of varieties of German in Austria in their complex linguistic and social structures. Thereby, individual tendencies as well as those tendencies specific to certain groups are taken into account. Task cluster B is divided into three project parts that collectively address the following questions:

Who in Austria speaks which form(s) of German to whom and when? Which registers (varieties, styles) are chosen in certain contexts and how are they used? Which speech repertoires are in fact available to whom in Austria?

Which processes of language change can be derived from the comparison between ‘older’ language data and the SFB’s new data of currently spoken German? Which hypotheses can be postulated as a result of the synchronic variation ‘in vivo’ with regard to processes of language change in the future?

To what extent do cities such as Vienna and Graz influence the linguistic conditions in Austria? Which kind of impact do these cities have on the dialect landscape in Austria, on the one hand, and on the establishment and stabilisation of an Austrian standard language, on the other?

In order to pursue these and other questions, language data of a large number of people (of diverse regions and groups) in Austria are currently being collected and analysed extensively. Future steps will include the investigation of individual linguistic characteristics and potential patterns of language use. Within the scope of the data collection, rural as well as more urban areas (c.f. PP04) are taken into consideration. Besides dialects, special attention is paid to the German standard language in Austria as well as to the colloquial forms of speech which lie in between dialect and standard language (c.f. PP03). In addition to the data collected in the course of the SFB, comparative language data of the past century are consulted in order to trace the evolution of dialects in Austria (c.f. PP02).

The linguistic data, which will be analysed in Task cluster B, are primarily collected via active field work. This means that in all three project parts the selected speakers are recorded in their home regions, ranging from Vienna and Graz to smaller and more rural locations in all of Austria’s federal provinces. These recordings take place in different ‘examination situations’ which cover traditional sociolinguistic ‘in depth interviews’ (discussing topics such as individual language experiences), experimental investigation techniques (such as translation exercises or image descriptions), and conversations close to everyday speech situations. This way, our speech data can offer a broad picture of various ‘linguistic spaces’ in Austria.

Task cluster B: Variation and changes of German in Austria consists of the following project parts: